loose lips sink ships

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a warning against careless disclosure of sensitive information, originating as an American wartime propaganda slogan of World War II cautioning that seemingly innocent conversations might be overheard by enemy agents and used to locate and destroy Allied naval vessels; the phrase encapsulates the security principle that information has strategic value and that its disclosure — even without malicious intent — can have catastrophic consequences; it has passed into general use as a caution against gossip, indiscretion, and the unconscious revelation of confidential information in casual conversation; in contemporary security culture it is applied to operational security (OPSEC) practices and to the social engineering vulnerabilities through which sophisticated attackers extract sensitive information through apparently innocent conversation rather than technical intrusion